The Moz Blog

A Link Building Rule to Cut Out and Keep

The author's posts are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

A few friends have asked me recently about how they can get their personal or business websites ranking higher in Google. I've tended to explain SEO - and link building in particular - quite differently to how I'd talk about it to Internet Marketing pros such as yourself.

In particular, there's one piece of advice that I've given so much recently, that I thought it's worth mentioning here. I hope that even experienced link builders will see value in considering this (and to be honest, they may get even more out of it.) It's not intended to be rigidly stuck to, but I think that its greatest use is in how it can be applied to any link building tactic or framework, so much so that I think it's worth putting on a faux brass plaque:

"The most valuable links you can get, are those which your competitors will never be able to have."

It might be something to do with your content, your business or your internal resources, that gives you opportunities that competing sites don't have. You can use this rule to assess any link opportunity to see if your site has a unique edge (or if your competitors could get the link too) but if you can actually identify some of those unique factors of your site, then you can use these to proactively discover new opportunities.

If it's not already explicit (and because you deserve more than a 215 word post) we'll take a look at how it applies to various link building tactics, and then look at how it can be used to find new opportunities.

Linkbuilding Tactics, Assessed

Directories:

Directory submissions have been discussed on SEOMoz before (see posts from 2007, 2008, 2009). With this rule in mind, you say "is this free-for-all directory, in which people who've paid the money are almost always listed worth being in?" and the answer is probably not. Then you come across something like Ethical Duck which lists websites which they consider "in some way are of a positive value to humans, the environment, the planet." If you've made an ethical commitment that sets you apart from your competitors, then getting a link in this directory would be something you can do, but that your competitors can't. Likewise, any quality directory that editorially discriminates on your niche/location/other factors may be equally worthwhile.

Create content specifically to attract links:

Whether it's out-and-out 'Linkbait' or just some great content, you can attract links from sites in a particular niche with the right content. Will this help you target sites that your competitors can't get links from? Well, that depends on the other competitors in your industry, propensity of niche sites to link, etc, as well as making sure that you pick the rights aspect of your business to market in this way. However. the overwhelming influencer is likely to be whether you are capable of creating great content. If you have the time/resource/motivation to do this - and do it better than your competitors - then you'll be able to count this tactic amongst your most valuable.

Article Sites:

You know the score with this practice: a site creates tens or hundreds of articles (including a keyword rich link back, naturally) and then gets the published across large and small article sites. Could your competitors do this as well? You betcha. If you're able to create some quality content and distribute it to sites that wouldn't typically publish articles like this, then you are using article marketing the right way. (Thanks Patrick.)

Buy exact match domains

Can you or your competitor do this better? It basically just comes down to who has a better budget and moves faster - therefore it doesn't really say much about which site is more relevant to a particular keyphrase. This probably explains why the more established search engines don't pay quite as much attention to it, as say, the less advanced ones.

These are just examples, and you can go through any linkbuilding technique to see how it measures up on this score.

Linkbuilding Opportunities, Discovered

I'd suggest beginning by writing a list of everything that sets you apart from some or all of your competitors (both the online and offline ones, if appropriate) - but these only need to be differences, with no predjudice as to whether these things make you better or worse. If you have dedicated marketing staff, they may even have put time into creating lists like this already. Grab them, and anyone else who's interested to help you build this list - you never know where the interesting ideas may come from.

This section has examples of differences you might have to other websites / companies, and examples of how you can use them to help get links based on this rule.

You are a respected source of information/expertise/etc in the industry, but users of these resources rarely convert into customers:

Get your valuable resource online, and use it get links to your site. Make sure that the pages with this information on pass link juice to the appropriate money pages.

You don't make the products that you sell:

If your competitors are manufacturer-retailers, they'll benefit from vertical integration, double margins, etc. However, if you buy your products from a number of sources, then you should look at getting those of them with websites to link to you. If they're proud that you distribute thier product, then you shouldn't have much trouble getting them to link. You may also consider offering them a genuine testamonial, some end-user feedback, etc that they'll be keen to publish, along with a link to you.

You have much higher margins than your competitors:

High profit margin products (and services likewise) might be tougher to sell, but they will carry a considerably higher perceived value than the actual marginal cost to you of producing each unit. Go ahead and use this to your advantage by running a competition. If you're a music label, you could give away $1,000 worth of CDs, but it would only cost you a tiny fraction of that. If you run an online subscription service, there's typically very little cost to adding one new user, so give away some subscriptions. Executed well and seeded to the right places, a competition can gather a valuable number of links. (I was recently involved in a competition where the prize value equated to about 50cents for each unique linking site. Pretty good value.)

You have some really cheap products:

The Ferrari Store has a varied selection of products - as well as inlet valves from the Michael Schumacher's car in the 2000 F1 series (400 Euro) and a 'Ferrari Limited Edition' Segway (8,500 Euro) they have keyrings and pins from about 10 - 20 Euro. If they're requesting links from bloggers and site owners, then giving them one of these cheaper item along with the request could significantly increase their chance of a response. (Note to Ferrari: I can be contacted through the Distilled website. K Thanx.)

You have great sales staff:

You've got staff who can sell ice to Eskimos? Take them out for lunch, and teach them about SEO and linkbuilding. Great salespeople tend to have the cajones required to call people up out of the blue and get the response they want (in this case - links.)

You have lots of staff (e.g.: in a call center) who are not fully occupied:

There's no doubt that you have (at least occasionally) come up against tasks that could be valuable, but you can't spend time on. ("I wish I could email the webmaster of every rambling society in the UK" or "I wish I knew the top 100 Dugg pages in my niche" etc.) If you have a staff who have alternating periods of activity (eg: call center staff where morning are quiet and afternons busy, or booking agents where summer is busy and autumn is quiet) then teach them the value of some of this work. Don't forget to properly thank them for the work done, and to later show them how it has benefited the business.

Your site or products have won awards:

As hard as we try for them, awards rarely convert directly into new business. However, if you make sure that you get all the links possible out of then at least your SEO team will benefit from the accolade. Begin with the site of the awards themselves, and work from there. (Do you notice anything missing from this Sony Radio Academy Awards page? Clue: it's an anagram of 'KILNS')

You have a PR team who are great at getting you in the offline press:

You didn't choose your PR Team because they are great at getting you into newspapers, you chose them because they are great at getting you talked about. Even if they don't know the first thing about the web, they might relish the challenge of getting you into some large online-outlets. Once they've got the PR done, you can always follow up to make sure the links are properly in place, etc.

Actions & Epilogue

I'd suggest taking a quick look at your current link building practices now, and see how they measure up on this scale. I'm not suggesting that you should drop anything in particular, but it may be enlightening to think about which links you've built that couldn't be emulated by a competitor.

After that, go for the brainstorm mentioned above to see what makes you different, and then think about how that could help you build more links.

Just a reminder if your an SEO and your not aware what the public relationship team is doing then you need to have a staff meeting and a inter/cross divisonal meeting right away.

Ensuring that all press releases that get sent out have two items your website listed and at least one link built in to the press release if applicable.

When we are submitting a press release to news paper for example we provide two identical copies of that press release; one for the web with links and one for print. Joining forces with PR and Marketing is a must for SEOs these days just as SEOs and webdevelopers should team up, if they are not one in the same.

I like what you say and agree with the theory, AND I also have to conceed the point that many less-than-best practices (not unethical, just... lazy) seem to work, even in very competitive markets. While I belive that when it comes to link building quality > diversity > volume, i have seen volume trump quality and diversity often enough to know that its not a fair game we're playing.

I read posts like this and think excellent advise, great way to think about link building.

However when I am performing competition analysis for clients I continually see sites who's link building method is clearly, mass article marketing, directory submissions and the main quality links pointing at them are bought. These sites are ranking highly for competitive terms, in my opinion, without spending too much time formulating a link building plan and getting links from wherever they can.

I really think Google gives more credit to low quality mass link building, than it does to in depth high quality link building methods.

you're absolutely right wizz. The top ranking sites are exchanging links, buying links and doing all the "bad stuff". Google *barely* pays attention to it, and if your company is big enough you're getting away with it.

I know someone can reply with a retort that proves Google bans sites, but its way too small of a number.

We all about the industries where all the top ranking sites have questionable links in the profile. It's extra annoying when you're in a more benign industry and there is low-quality (but not 'blackhat') stuff going on.

However, if a site is getting loads of links 'from wherever they can' then there's always a chance that there are some gems in there.

I've seen sites rank well for a while on the strength of link quantity (rather than quality) but their strength has usually dissolved after a while. Maybe I'll write about a few specific examples soon.

Absolutely agree.
Look at everything your competitors have.
Mirror it.
Look at everything your competitors can't have.
Get it.
It's going to mark your site out from the crowd, and make the difference in any ranking calculation.

Don't forget the best way to get quality links is sometimes using your own network of sites.

Seasoned SEO's and medium sized firms will often have a large network of niche websites which they own and administer, its a long process but once you have enough of these pr 3 - 4 sites, they come in very handy.

( Writing this has reminded me to write a post on this link building tactic, stay tuned ! )

Search engines have typically put a fair amount of keyword relevance on the domain name, so if you wanted to rank for 'blue widgets in London' then buying www.bluewidgetslondon.com would (and for some search engines still does) get you onto the front page pretty quickly.

Since that only costs a few dollars, you can see why it shouldn't carry so much weight, and why Google discounts these thin domains to such a degree.

Grrr. The only that burns me more than seeing sites get top rankings with paid link schemes is when garbage sites get top rankings for exact match domains. Hate that one. Google gives WAY too much credit for this. Hope to see this start to get devalued in the rankings soon.

It often seems like link building is more of an art than a science. It's about quality more than quantity. Some people are extremely good at getting folks to toss links their way as a result of their "sales pitch" (aka link request). Articles like this help to fill out my perceptions of link building. Thanks a ton!

Yeah, I hoped that this post wouldn't generate a bunch of poor quality, opportunist link requests to be sent them, but I trust the SEOMoz crowd, and I hope they'll enjoy all the ethcial links they are sent today!

Useful post. Sort of a combination of thinking outside of the box while adhering to some proven methodologies.

So many follow the same path, without looking for an angle, without finding their "purple cow". The same old directories being submitted to by the same groups - it's becoming laughable.

I guess the main thing I like about this post is that it reinforces the fact that while there's an abundance of useful tools and proven methods, how they are used is what makes the difference in a successful search marketing effort.

Honestly I have no idea what you are talking about. Everything you say not to do has always worked very well for me. Domains with keywords in names works so well on Google you don't even need a backlink to get a page one ranking for some valuable keywords.

Article writing does not work anymore but used to work fine and the old links and rankings are still keeping my clients pinned at numer one.

The simple fact that others can do something does not mean that they will. Most competitors don't have the skills to execute well on any SEO strategy.

Do willy nilly directory links and article site links work? Not really. But a good link from a relevant directory and a domain name with your top keywords will get you an ROI of about 100000% on the 100 bucks a year it costs to keep the domain and the listing in many markets.

The question is and should always be - does it work - does it get rankings. Saw a good article last week showing that no follow commenting on blogs alone can get you indexed and a boost in rankings. That does not mean that I would follow the strategy. But its cheap enough and there is clear evidence that it works.

It depends on the market, the keyword and your time and budgetary constraints.

As far as getting links that my competitors will never be able to have - thats a nifty goal. But 9 times out of 10 in most markets and with most clients the constrains are getting them to do what works effectively. The rare links take care of themselves - we go for those too. But what ever gets the job done. Have a client in UK with a top ranking site on very valuable keywords -he got it from pure link buying (not from me) He has no need to do anything else, he is pinned at number one. His competitors could buy the same package of links in a heartbeat -but guess what - they don't. Ask him how "valuable" those easily bought links are? They are worth a bloody fortune!